1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capturing method and apparatus, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for recognizing a plural number of faces, a method and apparatus for automatically registering an interested face, and an image capturing method and system using automatic registration of an interested face and recognition of a plurality of faces.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, face recognition has been generally used in apparatuses, such as a digital still camera (DSC), a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera, a phone camera, or a camcorder, which need a face recognition function for live view, image capturing apparatuses that need to capture a high-definition image of a person of interest, and apparatuses that need to recognize the faces of a large number of persons in real time.
Such an image capturing apparatus, e.g., a digital camera, supports an intelligent function of detecting only a face from an image that is to be captured when detecting and recognizing a character of interest.
However, a face registration method would be inconvenient since a user has to allocate identification (ID) to a face that is to be registered in an image capturing apparatus. Also, an ID input keyboard or an additional user interface, which an external user input device, must be added to a conventional camera interface in order to allocate ID to a face that is to be registered.
Also, a conventional digital camera must operate in real time in order to process auto exposure (AE) and auto focusing (AF), which are functions unique to a camera, and additional user interaction information in units of frames. Thus, if a face detection module and a face recognition module are added in order to obtain a high-definition image focusing on a character of interest, additional hardware resources are required.
Even if face detection/recognition is embodied in a hardware manner and is performed using a multi-thread scheme, a time required to perform face recognition is proportional to the total number of faces detected. Thus, if the total number of faces detected increases, the result of face recognition is delayed by several frames or several tens frames. In this case, a time delay occurs between the result of face recognition and a frame being currently displayed, and thus, it is impossible to implement synchronous processing.
Accordingly, there is a need to develop a face detection and recognition method capable of preventing such a time delay without overloading functions unique to a camera in a hardware manner.